How to Create Watercolor Typography In Photoshop (Free Brushes Inside)

Within this tutorial, you will learn the most effective way to create watercolor typography in Photoshop using free resources created by yours truly. By following the very simple steps below you will transform your type into a lettering piece that looks hand painted. Before we start, I will be using this watercolor brush pack that I published to Inspiration Hut and the Petal Brush font from my Free Font Bundle.

1. Make a new document (I’ve used 800px x 600px). Select the Type Tool and type with your chosen font. This works with most style fonts, but for extra effect, I’ve selected my Petal brush font.

2.Right-click on your Text layer in the layers panel (the ‘T’ icon, not the text) and click ‘Select Pixels‘ (or Ctrl + Click on Layer). This will make a selection around your type. Make a new layer and hide the text layer just like the example below.

3.Selected the new layer and load your chosen Watercolor Brush pack. If you are using the same pack as I, please keep in mind that they were designed to work better with large artwork. So re-size your preferred preset to roughly fit 3-4 letters, by doing this, the quality improves drastically. Experiment with different presets and sizes until you’re happy with the results. Here is my result with the No.74 brush preset and a size of 600px (hover over the individual presets to see the number of the brush).

4. For the finishing touches, I duplicated the watercolor layer to increase the contrast and sharpened (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, then, Edit > Fade Sharpen > 40% > OK) the result. I also added a brush in the background on a new layer for an extra effect.

Now that we’ve nailed the basics – repeat the process and don’t be afraid to use color like I have in the example below. The splats were actually taken from a font that I designed (the Hamilton font family for Design Cuts)

Comments

Hey Burton, I think the way I have constructed that sentence is confusing. I’ll fix that. What I mean is;

4. For the finishing touches, I duplicated the watercolor layer to increase the contrast and sharpened (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, then, Edit > Fade Sharpen > 40% > OK) the result. I also added a brush in the background on a new layer for an extra effect.